If a key indicator of the health of a democracy is the state of its journalism, the United States is in deep trouble. In Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Robert McChesney lays the blame for this state of affairs squarely at the doors of the corporate boardrooms of big media, which far from delivering on their promises of more choice and more diversity, have organized a system characterized by a lack of competition, homogenization of opinion and formulaic programming.

Through numerous examples, McChesney, and media scholar, Mark Crispin Miller, demonstrate how journalism has been compromised by the corporate bosses of conglomerates such as Disney, Sony, Viacom, News Corp, and AOL Time Warner to produce a system of news that is high on sensationalism and low on information. They suggest that unless citizen activism can reclaim the commons, this new corporate system will be characterized by a rich media and an ever impoverished, poor democracy.

SECTIONS: PART ONE: MEDIA OWNERSHIP - Who Is Sumner Redstone & Why Should We Care? / Who Gave the Airwaves Away? / Welcome to The Revolution? / PART TWO: JOURNALISM & DEMOCRACY - But What About The First Amendment? / What Happened to the News?

Length: 30 min

DVD

http://www.mediaed.org

Youth Empowerment in Action!College of Education
University of Missouri - St. LouisOne University Blvd.St. Louis, MO 63121 USA